Chapter LII: Sibyl’s Punishment

Several men went to Kitty May’s assistance, and helped her to secure the handsome young dude. Having lost his hat in the _mélee_ with the maid it was discovered that a quantity of pretty flaxen hair had been rolled in a twist on the top of his head and adroitly covered by a fair wig. The wig having been torn off, the long hair rolled luxuriantly over his shoulders, and he stood confessed--a woman!

“Didn’t I tell you ’twas Sibyl St. Alban?” cried Kitty, puffing and blowing with her valiant exertions but triumphant. “Oh, you wretch, you she-devil, you! Do you know what they ought to do with you now? They ought to take you up on the gallows there and hang you till you’re dead for the awful slanders you uttered against my angel mistress! How did you get out of your grave anyhow, and come back to curse the earth again?”

“You lie. I am not Sibyl St. Alban,” answered the elegant youth; but denial was useless. There were many present who had seen the pretty belle, Mrs. St. Alban, and who now identified her instantly. Murmurs of wonder and execration arose on every hand, but all became suddenly silent as Governor Steele mounted the scaffold and asked for the attention of the crowd.

They gave him one ringing cheer and then remained respectfully silent.

In brief eloquent language he told them all the truth--he told them of the jealous lover who had killed his fickle love, and who in his dying hour, torn by the fierce wolves of far-off Egypt, had written down a confession of the truth in his heart’s blood. He held up the paper with the dark crimson letters upon it to their view, and Sibyl St. Alban who had stood without a shudder to see her innocent rival die a shameful death, reeled and fainted at the appalling sight of the evidence against her, written in the heart’s blood of Oswald Ferris.

They carried her into the prison--into the very cell where Nina had languished away hopeless months of anguish--and laid her down to recover from the swoon into which she had fallen.

When she recovered all her bravado and defiance had vanished. The sight of the gloomy cell in which she was lying filled her with terror and disgust. Seeing how useless was all denial, and in hope of escaping from the power of the law, she was ready to confess all.

“My wound was not mortal,” she said, “and I discovered the fact in a few minutes after Oswald Ferris had left the room. Then a diabolical plot entered my head. My love for Talbot Strangemore had turned to bitterest hate, for he told me that night in the conservatory at Selwyn Heights, where I got up a scene to make his wife jealous, that he had discovered that his fancy for me was the merest fancy after all, and that he had never loved until he met his beautiful bride the night of his return home. He begged me to forget our foolish and wicked love-dream, and to go away from Selwyn Heights and leave him in peace to woo and win his gentle girl-bride. Oh, how I hated him, then, and I could have killed him on the spot, but happening to turn my head, I saw Nina looking in at the door, and I instantly threw my arms around him and laid my head on his breast, arousing her anger to such a degree that she accused me before them all of taking her husband from her. Well, I had my revenge. I went to her room that night and goaded her to madness until she promised to leave Talbot free to marry me. I watched until I saw her leave her home, then I retired to bed, gloating over the misery I had caused Talbot and Nina in thus separating them. I fell asleep and knew no more until I felt the assassin’s knife enter my breast, and waking in fear and agony, I recognized the desperate man with whom I had coquetted so heartlessly. He fled, and when my loud shrieks brought assistance I did not choose to betray Oswald Ferris, for then I should have had to own that I had driven him to frenzy by my falsity. I had stolen a letter from Nina’s door that night and brought it away with me. When they found it and wondered over it, I at once conceived the plan that I afterward carried into execution. Thirsting for vengeance on those whom I hated so bitterly I charged Nina with the murder, knowing that her flight would lend color to the accusation. Afterwards I bribed the physician who was called to attend me, and with his help I carried out my daring scheme. I apparently died and was buried, but he resurrected me secretly, and I went on then alone with the plan I had laid out. I haunted Selwyn Heights, playing ghost, until I caught Nina home again, and then I caused her arrest in a few hours of her return.”

“My God, and to think that I ever fancied I loved such a fiend!” she heard a voice exclaim, in accents of the most passionate self-contempt.

She turned her head and saw Talbot Strangemore sitting just inside the cell, with Nina beside him. On her wasted, yet still lovely face was a look of such rare and perfect happiness, that the guilty woman gnashed her teeth in rage and despair.

“You have foiled me, Talbot Strangemore, and, oh, how I hate you both!” she hissed, with the venom of a serpent.

“Fortunately your hatred has no further power to harm us,” he replied, coldly; and she saw the re-united husband and wife look into each other’s eyes with a tenderness that almost maddened her.

“Well, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I never lost an opportunity of harming you both while I had the power,” she said, sullenly. “I laid my plans long before I came to Selwyn Heights. Do you know,” she said, bitterly, looking at Nina, “why you received no letters from your husband for two years before he came home? It was because I intercepted them all, using my influence over Oswald Ferris as a cat’s-paw to secure the letters before they were sent on shore and posted. Oh, I hated you, Nina Strangemore, long before I ever saw you, because you had married the only man I ever loved in my life. I was determined to separate you from him if possible, but I suppose,” she added, sullenly, “that there is more mysterious force in the marriage bond than I ever suspected. The moment he saw you he was attracted by you, and that moment made of me a devil. I hated you so much that I came to see you hung to-day, without the least twinge of conscience or compunction!”

Nina shivered, and leaned more closely on the strong arm that supported her.

“Yes, and my only regret is that Talbot’s coming was not delayed a little longer, so that you might have been dead before he came,” added the wicked woman.

“Oh, Sibyl, I did not know you could be so cruel and wicked!” cried a fresh young voice, indignantly, and Mrs. St. Alban saw Virgie Mason leaning on the arm of Marmaduke Cameron, and looking at her with reproach and scorn on her frank young face. Beyond her was Helen Starr, with Virgie’s handsome young brother. Both their faces expressed amazement and contempt.

“Dear me,” she cried, with a wretched attempt at sarcastic mirth. “So you are all here to witness my downfall? It is quite a melodramatic performance, is it not, but with the villain left out, as Oswald Ferris, who tried to murder me, is absent, and dead, let us hope, from the fangs of the Egyptian wolves.”

They gazed at her in disgust and abhorrence. Her appearance in her improper attire brought blushes to the cheeks of the fair young girls. They withdrew in disgust, and Sibyl raved when she found that she would not be permitted to leave the cell also. She was retained in durance vile to stand trial for the crime she had committed in conspiring against the life of Nina Strangemore by her novel and terrible plot.

If popular indignation had had its way, Sibyl St. Alban would have suffered death on the scaffold from which our beautiful, innocent Nina had been so opportunely saved, but a jury more merciful than the one that had tried Nina, awarded her a long term of years in the penitentiary. We will forestall time by informing our readers that she died before her sentence had expired, so she was never let loose upon the world again, to do evil with her wonderful beauty and her false heart.

Her co-conspirator, the physician, hearing of the arrest of Mrs. St. Alban, and her confession implicating himself, escaped the punishment due to his sin by a hasty flight to a foreign land, with his ill-gotten gains, the fruits of his crime.

Harvey Wilson and Talbot Strangemore never betrayed the fact of Ralph St. Alban’s existence in Egypt to those who believed him dead, but they lost no time in writing tidings to him under his assumed name of John Armstrong of all that had happened in Baltimore.

Several months elapsed before John Armstrong’s answer was received. Then it contained a bit of news that astonished them.

Oswald Ferris had not died after all. He had survived his terrible wounds and was well and strong again. He had bitterly repented his sins, and the tidings that he had not killed Sibyl St. Alban after all had made a new man of him.

John Armstrong added that neither he nor Ferris would ever again return to America. He was sorry for the terrible punishment his erring wife had brought upon herself, but he could do no good to her by returning, so he chose to remain dead forever to those whom he had once known.

Oswald Ferris wrote himself to Talbot Strangemore to express his joy that Nina was saved from her terrible fate, to implore forgiveness again and again, for his fault, and to assure them of his penitence and shame.

Remembering all that had passed, and how Sibyl St. Alban had driven the strong man mad, Talbot and his fair and happy young wife tried to think of him as gently and mercifully as they could. He never returned to his native land. He and Ralph St. Alban formed a strange bond of friendship and companionship that endured until their death which occurred long years after under the foreign skies that they had chosen for home.

And now, having disposed of all our characters, reader, you think it is time to write the Finis to this story. Nay, having followed our heroine through the vicissitudes of her sorrow and deadly peril, we would fain bask for a little while in the beautiful reflected sunshine of her wonderful happiness.